June 10, 2010

Twitterrific is the grandaddy of iOS Twitter clients — it existed on the iPhone before there was an SDK and was in the App Store on launch day, and again for iPad launch. Twitterrific has evolved from a reader-centric experience to a feature-full client and back to a highly focused app.

Craig Hockenberry, a principle at Iconfactory, the driving force behind Twitterrific, spoke to me at WWDC 2010 about getting Twitterrific ready for the iPad and how that process re-informed what will be going into (and perhaps coming out of) Twitterrific 3.0 for iPhone.

And no, Tweetie becoming the free Twitter for iPhone isn’t slowing them down. (You can read more on that from Craig and Iconfactory collaborators David Lanham and Ged Maheux)

Hockenberry has also taken a turn as author, with his iPhone App Development: The Missing Manual now available from O’Reilly. It takes you through the process, from SDK signup to Xcode and Objective-C, to deploying an app. It’s a treasure-trove of experience and insight for developers — aspiring and veteran alike.

Videos after the break. (Huge apologies to everyone, especially Craig, for the annoying wind noise — I greatly underestimated it during filming)